


stag's head

by quartzguts



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Corpse Desecration, Gen, Gore, Graphic Description of Corpses, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mental Instability, Suicide Attempt, very gross very nasty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:53:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25256473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quartzguts/pseuds/quartzguts
Summary: It’s three nights into their new routine when Noctis hears them talking outside the tent."He has to know, right?" Prompto whispers fiercely to Gladio. "Like, he can't actually think that Ignis is… that he's…"Ignis gets hurt. Noctis patches him up. It's fine. Everything's fine.
Relationships: Noctis Lucis Caelum & Ignis Scientia
Comments: 3
Kudos: 49





	stag's head

When Noctis grabs Ignis’s wrist, there’s no pulse. The gashes in his chest have chips of horn caught in them; his lungs are torn, the tissue strewn like lacework over bone. There's blood pooling around him in the grass. His eyes stare up towards the sky, glossy and unfocused; they seem to flutter as Noctis leans over him.

"Gods," Gladio chokes out. Prompto is retching somewhere behind them.

Noctis pays them no mind. He snaps Ignis's ribs into place, sliding the strips of lung back into his chest with wet plops, messy and shockingly red. Ignis’s heart thrums up a rhythm like a war drum as Noctis holds his skin and muscle together. He breaks a phoenix down over the wound, watches it stitch up, and smiles.

"Good as new," he declares, and helps Ignis to his feet.

\---

Ignis has been tired ever since the garula incident. He hasn't driven any, and doesn't cook much. When he manages to gather up the energy for it, it's only because Noctis helps—props him up chest to back and guides his hands over the stove, helps him grip his knife. He stays in the car when they take on hunts. He talks only to Noctis, and only very softly. Noctis thinks this is fair, thinks Ignis has the right to be a little traumatized after such a horrible injury.

They go to bed first each night, cuddled against each other in their sleeping bags while Prompto and Gladio clean up camp. It’s three nights into their new routine when Noctis hears them talking outside the tent.

"He has to know, right?" Prompto whispers fiercely to Gladio. "Like, he can't actually think that Ignis is… that he's…"

Noctis hums a tune, a lullaby his nursemaid—the one the marilith took—used to sing to him. The sound drowns out Prompto's voice. Beside him, Ignis shifts; his chest caves in a bit, and a gasp of air escapes his lips. It smells of overripe fruit.

Maybe he needs another potion, to help with the healing. Noctis will give him one tomorrow.

\---

Cor comes around the day after. He walks up the haven steps as they sit in their camp chairs, enjoying the sun. Ignis's head lolls as he dozes off. The summer bugs trill through the air. Cor, Gladio, and Prompto seem to have an entire conversation exclusively through eye contact and gestures—Noctis can’t follow it at all. Before he can ask what the big deal is, they all leave. No one says a word.

Noctis shrugs, and continues playing his game.

They return thirty minutes later. Gladio averts his eyes, Prompto looks nervous, and they’re both trailing meekly behind a steely Cor.

"Highness," Cor greets him.

"Hey," Noctis says. "What brings you here?"

"Gladio and Prompto called me." He looks at Ignis haltingly, and Noctis thinks he sees a flash of pain in those hardened eyes. "It seems we have a lot to talk about."

Noctis frowns. "Look, I know he's been sick lately, but that doesn't mean Ignis can't do his job."

"Noctis, this has to stop." Cor takes a step forward, and Noctis leaps to his feet, shielding Ignis with an outstretched arm.

"No, you need to stop. I'm not leaving Ignis behind. He'll get better." His voice cracks on the last word. The sky rumbles with thunder as Ramuh responds to the Chosen’s cry for help—Noctis wonders if they dread his summons, if they hate him as much as he hates himself. Cor looks up at the angry sky, his expression carefully blank.

"Alright," he says, and retreats.

\---

Cor stays with them for the rest of the week. As much as Noctis hates to admit it, Ignis is getting worse; his skin starts to discolor, growing green and purple with sickness, and fluid leaks out of his ears and nose and eyes. Noctis has to beat maggots off of him in the morning. He tries bathing him, but that makes the smell of sickness worse, and nothing he does can bring his temperature up. Noctis starts to truly panic when Ignis starts bloating, his skin stretching across awkward bulges in his flesh, distorting the face Noctis has known for over a decade.

Ignis still whispers to him at night, when they're alone in the tent as the others sleep outside. "It's not your fault," he coos. "I made this sacrifice of my own accord. You're fine, Noct. You’re okay."

"If you'd never known me, then you—" Noctis sobs, not knowing how to finish the thought. "You shouldn’t have taken that hit for me. You shouldn’t have d— _fuck,_ Iggy..."

"None of that, now," Ignis says, and Noctis curls up in his arms.

\---

Ignis's corpse falls apart into the second week, the hot, humid weather finally catching up to him. Noctis sniffles and whimpers, covered in rot, as he watches his oldest friend turn into something he doesn't recognize under the hazy midday heat.

"I can't," Noctis whispers. Gladio's arms encircle him from behind. It’s not an embrace. "I can't let him go."

"He's given more than enough for you. Let him rest," his shield says, a hard edge to his voice that makes Cor’s eyes narrow. Prompto looks between them and the body, one hand to his nose while other fists nervously in the fabric of his pants.

Something inside Noctis breaks. "You’re right," he says. His shoulders sag. It feels like his soul is spilling out alongside his words. "Let’s just… get it over with."

They bury him under a tree. Gladio digs the grave while Cor and Prompto scavenge a slab of concrete from an old parking lot. While they’re discussing what to engrave on the makeshift tombstone, Noctis stares. He stares as Gladio cuts through the earth with his shovel. He stares as Prompto picks a few flowers from the roadside. He stares as Ignis, ugly and rotted and very, very dead, disappears under the dirt. They don’t even have a coffin to bury him in, to protect him from the worms.

He turns around and walks away, unable to watch anymore.

\---

He walks to the ocean. On the shore, standing in the waves, Ignis is waiting for him. He’s healthy and whole, but the blood is still there—it’s flecked over his glasses and plastered in his hair, streaming out of his chest to catch in the folds of his clothes.

"You shouldn't do this," he says, smiling, his hair ruffling in the wind. It looks blonde under the sun. "If you do, my sacrifice will be for nothing."

"I can't do this without you." Noctis eyes the waves. There’s something seductive about them today. Something dark.

"I'll never forgive you," Ignis promises.

The waves crash in tandem with the beating of his heart. The horizon calls to him. Noctis thinks he hears a dog barking, thinks he catches his name on the wind, but the ocean is much, much louder. Ignis is lying down now; his ribs stick up like an anak's antlers. His lungs float on the water. The salt must be stinging him, hurting him. Noctis steps closer.

"It's not your fault," Ignis says without moving his mouth. "I'll never forgive you."

"Me neither," Noctis says. He grabs his own wrist.

He can’t feel his pulse.

\---

(Thirty minutes later, Gladio fishes him out of the water, and breaks a phoenix down over the wound.)

**Author's Note:**

> "why did you write this?" you may ask. don't worry, i'm asking myself the same question.


End file.
